Joke Division:

Remember the lost bounty of guns, gold, jewels and Joy Division and New Order master tapes found by British restaurateur Jamie Oliver as he was excavating and old bank in Manchester, England a few weeks back? Some jokester – or group of jokesters – capitalized on the moment quietly planting a track called “Arial” out there in the internet as a purported lost take circa Joy Division’s 1979 debut album Unknown Pleasures. Nevermind that the chord progression is lifted straight from one of The Stooges‘ finest. Or that the lyrics are an obvious punchline: “My TV is bugging me/Wanna stay up and watch my programs.” Bassist Peter Hook also took to telling NME that “If Ian Curtis ever sang lyrics like that, I’d have kicked him up the arse.”

The Art of the Lyric Video:

NPR‘s got a great expose on the resurgence of lyric videos these days, framing things around George Michael‘s precedent in the early 90s with “Praying for Time,” before the days of YouTube when labels and artists had sole distribution control. Pointing to the fact that fan-submitted lyric videos pop up in crazy amounts as soon as a single makes its way to the internet, the article waxes on aforementioned artists and labels taking back control and using it as both an art from and marketing device. SongLyrics being a lyric site, we nerd out over this type of thing. And certainly hope it will become an industry standard, as we consumers become more and more inundated with sights and sounds. Our most recent lyric video fav: The Shins‘ “September.”

WarnerTube:

Big Six dinosaur Warner Music is looking to get all technologic up in internet land, nurturing its YouTube channel with alternative concepts to standard music videos reports the L.A. Times. Dubbed “The Warner Sound,” one series will take the name “Staged,” in which an artist’s lyrics are acted out in drama scenarios. While “The Live Room” will aspire to replicate intimate live recordings a La Blogoteque‘s “Take Away” series. Warner being the only Big Six to distribute its videos directly on YouTube and its own artist’s websites, as apposed to VEVO, this will likely raise the bar for other labels.

Lyricapsule:

A smart bunch of pilgrims decided to trust the accusations of a nine and 11-year-old girl “afflicted” with some unexplainable malady the sufferers of witchcraft, and proceeded to allow the two girls to condemn those responsible. Initiated on this day in 1692, the Salem Witch Hunt took the lives of 19 men and women, mostly hung, with at least one poor soul the recipient of death by crushing. Arena jam-rockers Rush wrote a song about it once, actually putting Neil Peart’s genius drumming to poignant use with the final verse:

Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand

About Gavin Paul

Gavin Paul is SONGLYRICS' resident Content Guru. Chicago-bred, New York-sculpted, his words and ideas have appeared in publications ranging from Spin and Rolling Stone to The Chicago Sun-Times and Arborist News.